Natalia DeVencenty Wins 15-18 Horsemanship With Chex Is The Choice, But Misses Awards

By: Brittany Bevis

Natalia DeVencenty will remember this night forever, for many reasons. For the past five years, she and fellow barn mate, Klay McDowall, had a dream that they might go first and second in one of their favorite classes, Horsemanship, at a major show. Tonight, at the 2017 All American Quarter Horse Congress, that dream became a reality, but in true horse show fashion, not exactly as they’d expected.

At the exact same time 15-18 Horsemanship was scheduled to take place in the Coliseum, the finals of the 3-Year-Old Non Pro Western Pleasure Futurity was scheduled in the Celeste. Natalia was entered in both, on two different horses. For Horsemanship, she was partnered with her trusty standby, Chex is The Choice. For Western Pleasure, she planned to show her new mount, Moonlite Madnez. As of this morning, Natalia had planned to scratch Horsemanship in order to compete with her new horse.

“I knew there was going to be a conflict, and I really wanted to show my new horse, so I thought I would scratch Horsemanship. I told my trainer, Kelly McDowall, and he said, ‘No!’ I went into Horsemanship not knowing if I was going to get to show in Western Pleasure or not. Kelly said, ‘Here’s the plan. If the Western Pleasure is still going on when the Horsemanship is done, just jump out the back gate and run to the arena and we will throw you on.’ That’s what I did!”

While Natalia was showing her three-year-old in the Celeste, Kelly’s daughter, Claire McDowall, happily jumped aboard “Chex” for the awards ceremony. Once it appeared Natalia was going to be named the Congress Champion, Marnie McDowall, Kelly’s wife, radioed up to the Celeste to let her husband know.

“I was waiting for the callbacks in Western Pleasure, and I could see Kelly smiling. He mouthed, ‘You won!’ In the middle of the lineup, I yelled, and everyone looked at me. I was crying. Everyone probably thought I was mad, because my horse wasn’t good or something. So I ran out of the arena and over to the Horsemanship awards, but I missed it!”

By the time Natalia arrived, the awards had already been announced, so she and Klay, who was named the Reserve Champion with Certainly A Blaze, took to the warm up arena for a makeup victory lap. “This is something we’ve been planning for five years, and Klay is going to be an amateur next year, so this was our last chance.”

Klay is a Congress veteran in this class. He’s been named a two-time Congress Champion, most recently in 2016. Natalia has won Equitation at the Congress, but never Horsemanship. “I’ve had the Congress bug. I’ve always had terrible luck here,” she says.

“This is beyond cool,” Klay says. “The fact that we’re still friends after all this, I think, is a testament to how close of friends we actually are. We are two of the most competitive people I’ve ever met. We try not to talk to each other before big shows.”

To have the top two riders in a very competitive class of 119 speaks volumes about Kelly McDowall’s ability to develop and nurture young, Horsemanship talent. “I think his ability stems from him letting us ride our horses,” Clay says. “He rarely gets on Chex or Bruce. He helps us all the time, obviously, but I’ve taught Bruce a lot of Horsemanship, and Natalia has learned everything about Horsemanship on Chex.”

“He guides us, but he allows us to figure out what we’re doing, ourselves,” Natalia adds. “He always says, ‘Don’t be a freak!'”

Klay explains, “We like to run as fast as possible and spin as fast as possible.”

“We go 100% all the way, and sometimes that gets in the way,” Natalia says.

Well, it certainly didn’t get in the way tonight as these two Horsemanship dynamos achieved their dream of being crowned Congress Champion and Reserve Congress Champion, side by side.